


Clean Sweep

by pauraque



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dreams, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-19
Updated: 2004-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Snape's dream, he is climbing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clean Sweep

**Author's Note:**

> For seifergrrl, who requested Snapefic with the theme of "freedom".

In Snape's dream, he is climbing. The rocks pull at the skin of his hands, skin that is thick from being washed and dried over and over again. The sky is grey and thin, and there is something at the top of the mountain that he needs to get to, but doesn't want to see.

The black dog bounds up, all dangling tongue and big paws. It bites him in the back of the leg, and Snape's grandmother is there, shaking his shoulders and burning him with her fathomless eyes.

'You're with him,' she shrieks, her cheeks withered and hollow, 'you're with him!'

Snape looks wildly at the dog. 'I'm not,' he says, panicked that he has died in his sleep, and he wakes up with a choking gasp.

*

He thinks of Black's death, and he takes no pleasure in it.

He puts the book down on the table in his bedroom. It isn't a table, though. It's a wooden crate that once contained a large delivery, and he'd meant to get rid of it. But there were more pressing things to do, so it stood there, and he began putting his mail down on top of it. And then books, and papers, and other things to be dealt with later, and eventually it wasn't a crate anymore, but a table. His table. It would be inconvenient and difficult not to have it there now.

He thinks of Black's death, and he takes pleasure in it, thunderously vast: Of course!

*

He's on the mountain again.

'It would be easier to climb up if you transformed.'

'Idiot,' Snape says, and it comes out without his meaning it to, like being under Imperius. 'I'm not an Animagus.'

'You never tried it?'

He doesn't answer.

'Didn't you ever wonder what you'd be? A slug? A manticore larva?'

He still doesn't answer.

'Come on. It's no fun if you don't fight back.'

'I'm tired,' he says. He doesn't know why he says this. He walks away.

The dog chases after him, nudges the backs of his legs. Without wanting to, he sits down carefully on the ground.

Black leans in and kisses his cheek. Quick and wet— a dog's kiss. He looks disgusted after he does it, and dances away with an airy sneeze.

*

When Snape arrives at the house, it's quiet but for the ticking of the grandfather clock, and Lupin is slumped flatly into the armchair, deflated. Steam curls from a cup on the low table in front of him.

Snape sits down on the sofa. He thinks of Black as he was the last time he saw him alive: Sprawled out on this sofa — snoring — his fool face smushed against the cracked leather.

'You can't expect me to feel sorry,' he says eventually.

Lupin just barely shrugs. 'I don't expect you to feel anything.'

His words are factual and empty — there is no bite of malice in them. Snape is oddly, listlessly disappointed by this, and wants to cast about for something to prick Lupin to anger. A defence is not useful without an attack.

'You think his death was my fault.'

Lupin slowly lifts his hand and passes it over his face. 'I'm tired,' he says. 'I'm just tired.'

*

Snape is taking all his things from his rooms at Hogwarts. He leaves the table that used to be a crate for last, edging around it. But eventually there is no choice; he picks up each thing one by one, each half-finished book, each unanswered letter. He tears things up and puts them in the rubbish bin, and puts others carefully in boxes to take with him.

He stands up to stretch, and he turns, and the clock reads midnight. And there is a bare crate in the middle of his bedroom.

When he comes back to the house, he lies down on the sofa. The leather is cracked, and it smells heavy, like mildew. It's a foul thing, but he doesn't get up. He thinks about the foolishness of leaving himself vulnerable in a semi-public place; whatever anyone decided to do to him while he was sleeping, he'd surely deserve. He still doesn't get up. He's just so _tired_. He draws his legs up and falls asleep.

And he dreams that he is climbing.


End file.
